


Free

by Curiaso



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death, Depressed Severus Snape, Depression, Diary/Journal, Forgiveness, Gen, Good Severus Snape, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Heaven, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentor Minerva McGonagall, Poetry, Potions, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, This is not poetry but it talks about poetry, Wizarding World, Writing, goodish snape, not really but also not totally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curiaso/pseuds/Curiaso
Summary: "No one happy to torture and kill and maim and hurt, is in that much pain and turmoil within themselves. No one." - After the war Minerva is angry, but an insistent Albus, and a need for understanding drives her to Severus' house, where she learns to forgive, and to understand, and to have perspective.





	

He was dead. It was not an unforeseen future, one without the master potioneer, but it was not one she had prepared for in abundance. There was only so much preparation she could have done in the face of the school being taken over. Severus himself had stopped her from readying for success-or failure. He himself had been an inhibitor. After the war, for weeks, she had been angry. Angry at how little Albus had readied them, angry at how Severus had betrayed them, angry that students were forced to convert to soldiers. She avoided Albus’s portrait in a meticulous fashion, immersing herself instead in the rehabilitation of the building, of people, of hope within Wizarding Democracy. 

 

But eventually the building was turned from crumble to ruins to castle. Eventually the people healed, recovered, or just passed. Eventually, a headmistress had to return to her post. 

 

“Don’t judge him as harshly as you do.” No hello, no congratulations. Another command from Albus. They argued. 

 

Later she would reflect on how very useless is was to oppose the dead, but for now she fought. Fought about principals, how entrusting a man as spy was tricky business, that he was not in fact, as Albus often thought of himself, a politician. How some strategies aren't worth it merely based upon the moral fiber of a society. How could he do this. How could he DO this.

 

And Albus calmly debated back. How war made things otherwise heinous a necessity. How Severus was trustworthy to a fault. How he had saved them all. How his actions where's always understood, but please Minerva, I had the best thoughts in mind. And what it all eventually boiled down to was this. Go to Severus’s house. 

 

And for days after Minerva refused. Traitors houses held no interest to her. But Albus’s insistent gaze made her antsy. Made thoughts of what that house may be like, what secrets it may hold, boil in her skull till six days later she leapt from her chair and marched out. Albus had told her the address already, and she had memorized it quite by accident. A quick pace to Hogsmeade and a speedy apparition later, she was facing a thin brick building, unremarkable in and of itself. In an area that likely housed industrial workers a long while back, it gave the impression of sooty uncleanliness. 

 

She had expected wards, but for some reason could sense none. Whether this was some of Severus’ handy wand work, or some reaction to his death, Minerva was unsure. She cast a hesitant Alohomora, and when she wasn't viciously attacked, proceeded in through the door. A short hall lead to a living room seemingly without doors. Shelves and shelves of books covered every wall, leaving space for only a fireplace, with nothing but two ratty half sofa’s, an equally as worn armchair, and a side table covered in newspapers in the room otherwise. 

 

It was…. Exactly what she had imagined, while also being the opposite. For, however dank the dwelling appeared, Minerva could also imagine a roaring fire replacing the lifeless coals in the fireplace, casting glowy shadows across the pallid face of Severus. And she couldn't help but admit that it would a homey sight. One filled with comfort.

 

She walked along the edges of the bookshelves, looking for some opening. This could not be all that was Severus’ house. For one there had not been a bed, and for two the outside looked much taller than just that little, low ceiling room.

 

Without any force or magic from her, a door shaped section of the shelves dissolved into a set of stairs, going up. She stepped slowly, the stairs creaking beneath her. At the top of the staircase, was another short hallway, which lead to two separate rooms. Peeking into one, there was a bed, but with no books, papers, or other effect to clutter the space. Nothing but the bed (which was bare of sheets) and a door she assumed lead to a bathroom. Walking farther down the hall, was another door. This one was locked, and when she touched the doorknob began shaking angrily, which eventually extended to the door itself. 

 

She let go and took a step back, considering. Albus had told her to come here. As if this would somehow give her insight into Severus, give her a reason he had betrayed them as he had. She had to find a way through this door. 

 

Alohomora did nothing but make the brass fixture knob shake even more violently. Portaberto blasted a hole through the bottom of the knob and stopped the now vibrating door, but when she reached for the knob again, to check if it had worked, it burned her hand and resumed its shaking. As a last resort McGonagall threw an impatient Bombarda, which blew the wood to smithereens, and threw the knob down the stairs, where Minerva continued to hear it knocking angrily against the planks of stairs as it shook. 

 

The room she entered was the opposite of the one prior to it.

 

Severus had never been someone she considered cluttered, but there was no other words to describe it. His bed lay in a crinkled mess of sheets and blankets. His pillows in strangle angles, and all over the bed. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings, the bureau, side table, corner armchair, and shelves filled with loose parchment, bound parchment, rolled, and crinkled. Various books lay abandoned on his floor, all of them appearing to be journals, rather than literary text’s. Looking up, Minerva found a ceiling covered in papers enchanted to stick, all of them pages to potion texts. Upon closer inspection, she found they were all poisons, and other equally unsettling recipes. One in particular caught her eye, an acid that dissolved human flesh within minutes. A large wardrobe (or at least what she thought was a wardrobe) was covered in papers as well, however these were all recipes having to do with ink. Ink potions, to make any ink a color you desired. Potions which would make the ink you used invisible to anyone but the person you wrote to. Potions to clean up ink splatter. Potions to disguise more menacing things as ink. 

 

The room was, as a whole, disturbing. Minerva bent over, picking a leather bound journal from the ground. Flipping the page over, she began to read the familiar spiked pen of Severus.   
“There is a chill tonight I cannot describe. I fear it is not just the weather. I fear it to be something much more dangerous…”

 

She flipped to another page. 

 

“...unacceptable brat…” 

 

Another. 

 

“I don’t understand how he can leave me in this state, time and time again, but perhaps that is all I am worth, as I…” 

 

And another. 

 

“It happened again, and again he spoke nothing but to force information from my tongue…” 

 

“....I cannot take this any longer, I think to myself every day I must survive in this drowning bathtub of shame I face every…” 

 

“Perhaps one day I can end this all…” 

 

“Maybe I can be free…” 

 

“I never meant it.”

 

“I didn't mean the things I spoke in those years, and looks what my words have brought me to; a man forced to bow to others, pride forgotten, life sacrificed. I am not dead, but I might as well be.” 

 

Minerva felt her body go numb reading these words, Severus’s heartbreaking depression was evident in the way he wrote. How he had longed for something outside of the ‘duties’ Albus had told her about. She was not sure if he had betrayed them (not anymore) but she was human. Even if he had been a traitor… Severus had been her colleague, but once upon a time he had been her student. Thin and crow like, with crooked teeth that barely ever were seen, as he never seemed willing to smile. Narrow shouldered, and Roman nosed, and shy to a point of painfulness. Once upon a time this man she stood in the bedroom of had been her student. A Slytherin, not her ward, but her student. And one that was good too. So good. Talented. One that spent time on his practice, and cared about transfiguration, and school, and learning. One that had recognized the importance of work ethic and knowledge. So different from her brave, confident, often foolhardy Gryffindors. But in a way so wonderfully his own that he made her proud to be his teacher. That little boy had long since gone, but suddenly Minerva could feel a deep pang in her heart for all the pain he had suffered, and the man he had been forced into becoming, whether by his own hands or otherwise. 

 

Minerva was not one for displays of emotion, but she could admit that a tear or two slid down her cheeks. 

 

In the coming months Minerva would make it her mission to pack Severus’ house herself, with all the care a mother would employ. She packed all the books, every single one from the sitting room library. She had found his lab and kitchen on her third visit, and had cleaned those out too. Eventually she made it to his bedroom, which is where the majority of the months she spent at Spinner's End were whittled away. She read every page and parchment in the room, and by the end felt she knew Severus more than she ever had, after over 20 years of teaching and working with him. She could recall times when he had scoffed at Fiction and Poetry. At times it was discussed as possible things to teach students. Now she wondered why Severus had done so, as she had found half a dozen journals based only around his poetry. He wrote beautifully. He should have, could have been a poet in another life. He was eloquent, and had an abundance of pain and sorrow to inspire from. His poems were haunting and gorgeous and made Minerva’s chest hurt to the point of poignancy.

 

It took months but eventually Severus, the man, was packed into boxes which were shrunken and carefully placed in the pockets of Minerva’s robes. She left the house, bidding it farewell in her mind. 

 

Her journey to Hogwarts was one of familiarity by now. Once she had made it to her office she sat and laid back, glancing at Albus under her eyelashes. “He was for us wasn't he?” She asked quietly, feeling numb. The question was barely even really a question. She knew the answer. 

 

Albus smiled serenely. “What made you realize?” 

 

Minerva sat up, eyed fully open, hands folded atop her desk. “No one happy to torture and kill and maim and hurt, is in that much pain and turmoil within themselves. No one.” She spoke quietly, but her voice quivered painfully. Minerva missed the man, abrasive and trapped as he had been.

 

Off in the golden place, Severus was free.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed. If so, please consider leaving some Kudos, or maybe even a comment!


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